


routine

by youcouldmakealife



Series: it's a setup [21]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:35:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26428741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: Things pretty much go back to normal.Well. That’s not exactly true.
Relationships: OMC/OMC
Series: it's a setup [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1669567
Comments: 27
Kudos: 322





	routine

Things pretty much go back to normal.

Well. That’s not exactly true. For one, they’re in the playoffs, and playoff time is never normal. Playoff time is a mix of the fucking exhaustion of training camp, the nail-biting stress of exams, and the awed excitement of getting to a tournament’s finals, except it’s not any of those things. It is a beast of a thing, and every single day Joey’s going through the wringer of nervous-excited-stressed-fucking exhausted. 

Not for long, thankfully, at least not round one — they take the North Stars out in front of their elated fans, and every other series in the west is going to six at least, so they earn a bit of a break from the bone-grinding. Which is awesome, because Joey’s amassed enough bruises and achingly sore places after only five games that he fucking needs it. The North Stars were not holding back on the physical front. On the scoring front? Yep. Goaltending? Absolutely. But fuck did they punish the Scouts for making them look as bad as they made them look.

After the game their massage therapist Brett does quick magic to the knots that are Joey’s poor legs, skirting carefully clear of the blood-black bruise of a shot block on his right calf, and Scratch patiently waits for him to hobble out on newly jellied legs before driving him home, which _is_ normal, the two of them carpooling, and Scratch making fun of him for walking like an old man, and following Joey into his place and getting Joey an ice pack for the bruise before plopping down beside him on the couch. No big afterparty for them tonight — Joey hurts. 

Besides, if Willy gets wind of any of them partying he’ll probably show up just to yell at them for being stupid and then sweep off to do whatever weird things Playoff Willy does with his spare time. Joey suspects watching game tape and lovingly patting his playoff beard and staring at walls with a menacing expression on his face.

So, totally normal if you ignore the fact Scratch is apparently in love with him, which Joey still is kind of in disbelief about.

Scratch doesn’t _seem_ in love with him? For one, at this very moment he is making fun of Joey’s beard just as much as he did this time last year. Joey’s playoff beard is exactly as good as it was last year too, which is to say it’s still patchy as fuck. It’s not the worst on the team, but it’s far from the best. He’d like to say it’s better than Willy’s, at least, and it had been last year, but Willy has finally hit his beard stride. Joey would genuinely not be surprised if Willy had started looking up tips for a better beard once it became evident that they’d be making the playoffs again.

Tip number one on that list is to trim it regularly, but even though Joey’s not as superstitious as some, he’s pretty sure trimming the playoff beard is a no-no. Also with his luck he’d sneeze or something and lose half of it in one fell swoop, take it from patchy to hilarious.

“It’s already hilarious,” Scratch says.

“You, sir, do not get to talk,” Joey says.

Scratch raises an eyebrow. “Do you honestly think your beard is better than mine?”

It absolutely is not. Scratch has a better beard than Joey if he forgoes shaving for all of a day. His is already one of the team frontrunners, and the only reason he isn’t the uncontested first is because some of the guys already had full beards going into the postseason. 

“Absolutely,” Joey bluffs.

Scratch raises the other eyebrow. Joey’s always been very jealous of his ability to independently raise his eyebrows. It is a skill Joey does not have, like carrying a tune or wiggling his ears or rolling his tongue. 

“Can you roll your tongue?” Joey asks. He knows Scratch is also ungifted at ear wiggling or singing in a way that doesn’t hurt people’s ears, but he doesn’t know whether Scratch can do that, and suddenly it’s unacceptable that he doesn’t.

Scratch sticks out his tongue. He can indeed roll it.

“Screw you,” Joey mutters.

“Can’t roll your tongue, Money?” Scratch asks.

“I could if I wanted to,” Joey says.

“It’s genetic,” Scratch says. “You absolutely could not even if you wanted to.”

Joey frowns.

“Are you trying to do it right now?” Scratch asks.

Joey quits trying, mostly because he can’t keep doing it and lie and say he isn’t doing it at the same time.

“I’m too tired to try,” he says.

“Oh yeah, it’s exhausting,” Scratch says.

“Completely,” Joey says, leaning on him. He probably _is_ too tired to do it even if he could. He was too tired to even bother turning on the late game, so they’re just sitting on Joey’s couch, staring at a blank screen, Scratch entertaining himself by mocking Joey’s pathetic beard. Scratch’s shoulder is more comfortable than it has any right to be considering he’s got biceps the size of Joey’s calves — his poor, poor aching calves — so it should be all hard muscle under his cheek. It isn’t, though. 

“What’re you doing right now,” Scratch says, more a statement than a question.

“Cuddling?” Joey says. “We’re a huggy people, you and I.”

Well, actually neither of them are in general, but with each other? Huggy as hell.

“We’re huggers,” Scratch agrees. “But we’re not cuddlers. Or like, I’m not anti-cuddling, cuddling’s the bomb, but cuddling is not in our — repertoire or whatever.”

This is an objective fact. One that is sad, because cuddling feels pretty great right now. But Joey gets it, gets exactly what it seems like to Scratch and what it seems like to him now that Scratch has pointed it out. He leans away, over to the other side of the couch. They’re touchy. They’re huggy. They’re not cuddlers, and Joey isn’t about to try to, what — trial run dating Scratch? Is that what he’s doing right now? 

“Sorry,” Joey says, “I was just — it was nice.”

“It was,” Scratch says, “But I can’t — you can’t just—”

If Joey was the hero of some grand romance this would be the moment he swooped in and kissed the words out of Scratch’s mouth. But he isn’t. Also it’d be super fucking rude not to ask first, especially since Scratch just drew the line at cuddling, which is one-hundred percent understandable, but disappointing because Joey was very comfortable. 

“Sorry,” he repeats. “You know I’d never — I didn’t mean to —”

“I know,” Scratch says, mouth quirking up a bit. It’s a nice mouth, honestly. Casey has expressed her envy of his full lips practically every time she’s seen him, and Scratch preens each time like a ridiculously vain peacock. It suits his face, which is all — every one of his features is dramatic, full lips, sharp cheekbones, nose that is miraculously still straight after all the fights Scratch has gotten in, eyebrows like exclamation points. It’s a good face, one that Joey could imagine kissing. But it’s a good face that’s attached to his favorite person in the world, and it’s just —

Joey’s fucking terrified.

“Stop staring at me like a complete weirdo,” Scratch says, brow furrowing.

“Sorry,” Joey says. “Have I ever told you that your eyebrows are very dramatic?”

The eyebrows get even more dramatically frowny. “You dissing my brow game, Munroe?”

“Pure brow praise, I promise,” Joey says. “Your hair game though—”

“Oh, you do not go after my radiant locks,” Scratch says. 

“Radiant locks is a weird way to say ‘rat’s nest’,” Joey says.

“You did not just say that,” Scratch says.

“I said it,” Joey says. “What’re you going to do, strangle me with your curls?”

Scratch gives him a sad face, and Joey swears one of those curls starts drooping on cue. Can he control them? Is he like Medusa or something? Is Joey about to be turned into stone for dissing the Angelopoulos flow? Can you call it a flow if it’s more of a tornado?

Joey’s so distracted by the apparently sentient curls he doesn’t see the flick to his forehead coming.

“Ow,” he says. “Also _ow_. Please don’t turn me into stone, Medusa.”

“You’re just jealous because your hair’s boring,” Scratch says.

Joey pats his hair appreciatively. It has a tendency to go all cowlick-y overnight, and gel never does what it’s supposed to, but at least it isn’t sentient.

“Thanks for not turning people into stone,” Joey tells it.

“Are you talking to me or your hair,” Scratch says.

“I know for a fact my hair’s never turned anyone into stone,” Joey says. “But you? You I dunno. You could have some stone people in your past.”

“Trust me, you’d know,” Scratch says. “Because if I’d turn anyone into stone it’d be you.”

“Aww,” Joey says. “That’s sweet. Thanks buddy.”

Scratch snorts, looks away. He had a smile curling at the corner of his mouth, but it drops, and he just looks wrung out now. It was a hard fought series. Exhausting. Joey doesn’t think that’s all of it.

“We should head to bed, huh?” Joey asks, and when Scratch quickly glances over, he realizes how that sounds. “I mean. To our separate beds! For some sleep! Because I dunno about you, but I’m wiped.”

“I knew what you meant,” Scratch says.

“Okay,” Joey says. “Okay, that’s — good, because I don’t even know what I mean most of the time so that’s. Good.”

“Get some sleep, Money,” Scratch says, mouth tilting up again, a smile but not — it’s not a real one? Or it is, but it’s complicated, Joey doesn’t know how to explain it, and it’s gone before he can figure it out, Scratch looking exactly as tired as Joey feels. “Take something first, though. That bruise looked ugly as fuck.”

“You look—” Joey says, then abruptly stops because a) not a good thing to say, b) might actually hurt Scratch’s feelings right now, and c) he doesn’t. He looks tired, yeah, and he needs a haircut, and he’s got a few gnarly bruises of his own, along with a cut under his chin from a high stick you can kind of see if you squint through his annoyingly good beard, but. 

“Don’t be weird, Money,” Scratch says.

“I thought you’d be used to me being weird by now,” Joey says.

“You know what I mean,” Scratch says.

“I know,” Joey says. “Sorry.”

“It’s cool,” Scratch says. “Just. I’m gonna head to bed. Take something for your leg, don’t tough it out.”

“Okay,” Joey says. 

“Night,” Scratch says, gives Joey this little shoulder punch on his way out, lingering for a minute like he’s not sure what to do, which Joey feels all the way down into his bones.

Joey hobbles to the kitchen, takes a couple of anti-inflammatories with a glass of water. Now that the high of winning’s worn off, he just feels achy, all his muscles and joints out of whack, so good call by Scratch. 

He lingers, typing things out then deleting them. _Took my meds like a good boy_ was the first stab, one that he’d have sent a month ago, but seems like an awkward one to send now. He already took the pills, so he can’t take a picture of the pills and water, unless he takes out more pills and refills his water just for a picture, but that feels like it’d be a weird thing to do. Just as weird as frowning down at his phone thinking about what he’s supposed to text Scratch. Maybe he shouldn’t text him anything? But that feels weird too.

 _Took meds_ , he sends finally. _Time to sleep for a million years_

He continues to frown down at his phone, stock still in his kitchen, only relaxing, able to drag himself to bed when Scratch texts back with _Me too. Night Money._ , even though it leaves something in him dimly unsatisfied, and even though he’s fucking wiped, it’s awhile before he manages to wind down enough to fall asleep.

So okay, maybe things aren’t back to normal at all.


End file.
